Chapter 31
ESSENCE
“Why don’t we all go to the carnival?” Ebony suggests cheerfully while we eat an early dinner.
Matthew is excited, but I’m really not feeling up to being around other people right now.
It’s been a few days since Dante was last here. He hasn’t come by to see me, and whenever I call the firehouse, his Captain always tells me he’s either not there or he’s busy.
I finally got my new phone, but I don’t have anyone to talk to since neither Dante nor the masked man have reached out to me. I left my new number with the Captain, but Dante has yet to text or call.
I miss him so much.
I sigh. “You two have fun. I think I'll stay home.”
Ebony’s face softens with concern. “Essence—”
“Plus, look at my face.” I gesture to my face, which is still bruised and gnarly looking. “I can’t go out like this.”
“Look, I know you’re grieving, but it’s not healthy to stay cooped up in the house all alone,” Ebony reasons softly. “I just don’t want you to go to a dark place because of what happened. And I have some concealer you can use,” she adds on hopefully.
“I know, but—”
“Pleeeease, Aunt Essy?” Matthew begs, pouting.
How can I say no to that face?
I chuckle. “Okay, I'll go.”
“Yay!” Matthew squeals, jumping up from his chair and running around the dining room. Ebony scolds him, or tries to anyway, but he’s so excited that he’s not even listening.
She shakes her head and sighs. “If you fall and hurt yourself, Matthew, that’s a natural consequence.”
Right after she says that, Matthew does, in fact, fall and hurt himself. Instead of running to his mom, he runs to me for comfort; he knows he should have listened to her.
Ebony rolls her eyes but goes into the kitchen to grab an ice pack. “You’re lucky your auntie is here to hug you when you don’t listen, Matthew.”
I rub his back and rock side to side to calm him down. “It’s okay, buddy. You have to listen to Mommy when she tells you to stop running in the house, okay?”
He sniffles and nods. After Matthew calms down, we finish our dinner and head to the carnival.
Ebony pays for our tickets, and as soon as we enter, Matthew runs over to the merry-go-round. We follow him over, climb onto the horses, and ride around. When we’re done, we grab some snacks—even though we just ate dinner not too long ago—and play some of the games.
At the ring toss, I set my phone down on the table and grab the stack of rings. Somehow, I get all of the rings around the old Coke bottle and win a prize, so I choose the stuffed Dalmatian wearing a firefighter hat.
“Here,” I say to Matthew, handing him the plushy. “Since Mommy won’t let you have a real dog, you can at least have this one. It will be like having Lunchbox with you all the time after we leave.”
His eyes go wide and round with excitement. He takes it from me and squeezes it tight, which completely melts my heart.
“Can Lunchbox come over tomorrow, Mommy?” he asks Ebony, looking up at her with big doe eyes.
I know she wants to say no, but she sighs and says, “Okay.”
Matthew and I cheer happily at that and run to the next game. After about an hour of being at the fair, he starts to yawn.
“You getting sleepy, baby?” Ebony asks him, crouching down and running her fingers through his thick coils. It’s dark now and close to his bedtime.
He nods, and we walk back to the car. As we’re pulling off, I reach into my jacket pocket to see if Dante has texted me—even though I know he hasn’t—but it’s empty. I check the other pocket, too, but it’s not in there.
“What’s wrong?” Ebony asks when she sees me frantically patting myself down.
“My phone is missing,” I say, checking the floor to see if it fell.
Where the hell is it?
Ebony pulls over to let the cars behind us pass and parks. “Let me call it.”
We’re silent as we listen for it vibrating, but we don’t hear anything.
“I keep telling you to stop leaving your phone on silent, Essence,” she scolds, turning back around to the fair.
I roll my eyes. “We should’ve still been able to hear it vibrating, Ebony,” I shoot back. “Crap, I just remembered I never picked it back up after the ring toss.”
“With the amount of people here, you better hope it’s still there.”
Ebony hands me her phone so I can use the Find My Phone feature just in case it’s not at the ring toss anymore. She pulls the car up to the ticket booth, and after I explain the situation to the attendant, she lets me back into the carnival.
I go straight to the ring toss, and of course, my phone isn’t there.
“Shit,” I hiss, bringing up the app on Ebony’s phone. It’s showing that my location is in a completely different part of the carnival grounds that I hadn’t even gone to. Using my best navigational skills, I go off in the direction of the blue dot.
It’s been forty-five fucking minutes, and I still can’t find my phone. I’ve checked practically every inch of this fair, every nook, cranny, crack, and crevice, and I still can’t find it. I’ve asked staff members and even patrons if they’ve seen it, but no one has.
The blue dot hasn’t moved, so whoever took it must still be in the same location, or they accidentally dropped it. I’ve walked past it several times and I still haven’t been able to find it, so I checked everywhere else in case there’s some sort of lag or glitch.
“This is ridiculous,” I mumble, my irritation rising. I’m just about to call it quits when the dot moves.
I gasp when I notice the dot moving in the opposite direction. Pissed, I storm through the carnival, trying not to lose it.
A few minutes later I end up at the Ferris wheel.
There’s no one in the area but one of the attendants, and the wheel isn’t moving so it’s safe to assume no one is on it.
I walk around the ride twice, using the flashlight on Ebony’s phone to scan the ground and surrounding area, but I still don’t see it.
“Do you need help?” the Ferris wheel attendant asks. He’s an older man with graying hair and a sweet smile.
I nod. “Someone stole my phone.” I hold out Ebony’s phone so he can see the screen. “My location is showing this spot right here, but I can’t find it anywhere.”
The attendant taps his chin and nods. “There’s a chance your phone, or whoever stole your phone, could be in the cornfield.”
He points to the darkened field behind the Ferris wheel, and I think I might actually cry. Aside from the lights of the carnival, the field itself is pitch black.
“Is the hayride still running?” I ask hopefully.
The man shakes his head. “Unfortunately, no. If you’d come about thirty minutes ago, you could have gone in, but the tractor’s headlights went out, so the hayride is closed for now.”
You’ve got to be kidding me.
The man continues. “Your best bet would be to come back tomorrow. We don’t open until five in the afternoon, but I’ll let the event director know your situation so someone can let you in earlier.”
“Okay, well… thanks,” I say dejectedly as I walk away.
It’s fine. It’s just a phone; I can get a new one tomorrow. Yet again.
I let out a frustrated huff and make my way back to the entrance. As I'm walking, Ebony’s phone buzzes with an incoming text. I check it to make sure she’s not texting me from someone’s phone—I've been in here for a long time—but it’s from my fucking phone.
When I open the message, my stomach flutters violently.
ESSENCE:
Giving up already, Essence? I thought you’d like the chase. Or maybe you’d prefer I chase you…
My mouth dries up, but all that wetness goes straight to my core when a picture of the masked man comes through.
Well, not a picture of him, but of his erect, dripping dick. The silver piercing on the tip glistens from the flashlight.
Oh…
I wasn’t expecting that.
I also wasn’t expecting him to be so large, but I shouldn’t be surprised. Anyone bold enough to wear a mask in public has to be well-endowed, right?
Even though I'm still irritated that I've spent almost an hour looking for my phone, I bite my bottom lip.
EBONY:
Where are you?
ESSENCE:
Cornfield. Come and get me, little flower.
Why did this have to happen right now? Why did he choose this moment to torment me?
EBONY:
My nephew needs to get home. He’s asleep in the car and my sister is probably worried about me now.
ESSENCE:
Then you better hurry up.
I huff out a breath and run into the cornfield. The Ferris wheel attendant calls after me, but I don’t stop long enough to hear what he says. I barrel through the stalks of corn and try to push them out of my way, but they don’t budge, so I’m sure I'll be bruised by the time I leave this field.
The flashlight on Ebony’s phone lights up the area in front of me, and when I look at the ground, I see boot marks imprinted into the dirt. They’ve been doing hayrides all day so it could be from anyone, but something is telling me that those prints belong to my stalker.
The blue dot on the screen starts moving again. Any desire I was feeling just minutes ago is gone, because why the fuck is he taunting me like this?
“Fucking asshole,” I swear, hissing when my shoulder hits a particularly solid corn stalk.
I rub my shoulder and continue following the masked man deeper into the cornfield until he makes an abrupt turn back in the direction of the Ferris wheel.
“Motherfucker!” I yell. In the distance, his deep laughter taunts me.
I turn back around and run as fast as I can out of the cornfield. I’ll trap his ass and make him give me my phone back.
A few minutes later, I end up back at the Ferris wheel at the same time as him. My mouth dries up at the sight of his massive body standing just feet away from me. I try to swallow, but there’s literally no lubrication in my mouth for me to do so.
I thought I'd be so tough, all big and bad enough to confront him, but now that I'm standing here, I can’t seem to find any of the words I want to say.
He takes a step towards me, my phone in one hand, and a knife in the other. My knees get weak, and I feel like I'm going to fall to the ground, but I straighten up and look him in the eye.
“So, all this time that you’ve been following me, breaking into my house and texting me, you’ve been waiting for this moment? To kill me?”
He takes another step toward me and cocks his head in a predatory manner.
“Is that what you think, little flower?” he asks in that low, deep voice that I love so much. “That I have the intention of killing you when I haven’t even had a chance to taste you first?”
“Oh, so you’re going to take what you want before you kill me?” I ask sarcastically, but my voice still shakes.
He takes one final step until he’s standing so close to me, my nipples graze the thin fabric of his tight black shirt. I try to ignore the thrill his proximity sends through me.
“Let me make one thing clear to you, Essence,” he says, towering over me so much that I have to lean my head all the way back to look up at him. “When I take what I want from you, it will be because you give it to me.”
He drags the tip of his knife along my jawline, making me shiver.
“And I know for a fact that you would give me anything I asked for.”
I scoff, but it comes out more like a breathless puff. God, he makes me so deliciously nervous, even considering he murdered someone just days ago.
“How do you know that?” I ask.
He sticks his knife in his back pocket and, without a word, shoves his gloved hand down the front of my pants.
I gasp but cover my mouth so I don’t draw anyone’s attention to us.
The masked man drags his fingers through my arousal and over my sensitive clit, taking his time to completely coat them and drive me crazy, before pulling his hand out and holding it between us.
Despite the chill of the night, I’m covered in a light sheen of sweat and panting.
“This is how I know, flower,” he says, examining my glistening arousal on his hand with fascination. “I’ve got you right where I want you—hot, wet, and desperate.”
My head feels light, and I start to sway. “Y-you didn’t ask.”
Through the holes of the gas mask, I see his eyes light up with amusement.
“You didn’t stop me,” he counters.
Before I have a chance to say anything else, he carefully lifts the bottom of the mask just enough to stick his fingers in his mouth. His moan as he savors the taste of me on his tongue has my clit throbbing with need.
“You taste divine, piccolo fiore,” he murmurs.
A pitiful whimper escapes me as I watch him carefully lick his gloved hand clean. When he’s done, he pulls his knife out again.
“You ever been fucked on a Ferris wheel, baby?”